


so i see the turning tides are parting for you

by nirav



Series: we are falling but not alone [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: “Winter is fine,” Weiss says, speaking carefully.  “But I have to go deal with something.  I’ll be back in a few days.”“Weiss,” Blake says, tucked into Yang’s side but reaching for her regardless.  Weiss shrinks back and clears her throat, telling herself the flash of hurt in Blake’s eyes is imagined.“I have to go,” Weiss says again, and she hurries away, down the hall and away from the rest of them, leaving them staring at her retreating form.or: Weiss's past comes back for her.





	so i see the turning tides are parting for you

* * *

Weiss stares at Yang’s reflection in the mirror, eyes bloodshot and apprehensive. 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” It comes out more like a groan than a sentence, half from nerves and half from the hangover pounding at the base of her skull. She eyes the scissors in Yang’s hands and grips too-tight to the edges of her chair.

“I know what I’m doing,” Yang says with an easy shrug. “I always cut Ruby’s hair when we were kids and she couldn’t even sit still.”

“She only really screwed it up like...twice, max,” Ruby says from where she’s laying sprawled out on the floor, sunglasses over her eyes. She lets out a groan of her own. “Why is the sun so loud?”

“You don’t really have to do this, you know,” Blake says, also sprawled out on the floor with an arm flung over her eyes. “You’ve been growing your hair out since--”

“Since I was twelve,” Weiss says quietly. “A lot’s changed since then. This will be good.”

“You’re sure?” Yang’s hands are soft on her shoulders, her eyes level in the mirror. She’s the only one without a hangover, to the irritation of them all, and Weiss sucks in a deep breath and nods.

“I’m sure. Cut if off.” She sets her jaw and closes her eyes and tells herself it’s a good thing, that change is good, that she’s grown in recent years. Even if it’s all because of a stupid bet.

* * *

_ (Weiss wrinkles her nose and presses her lips together, staring across the table. _

_ “Coward.” _

_ “Excuse you,” Blake says, glaring right back. Her cheeks are flushed from the alcohol, her gaze unsteady, and Ruby giggles too loudly at the both of them. Yang rolls her eyes from her spot on the couch and pauses in braiding Weiss’s hair to flick at her ear. “I’m not a coward because I think it’s a complete waste to break into your brother’s office just to prank him.” _

_ “Sure you aren’t,” Weiss says with a sniff. She digs her elbow into Yang’s shin and lets out a particularly undignified whine until Yang returns to braiding her hair. _

_ “It _ would _ be funny.” Ruby hiccups her way through the sentence, far drunker than the rest of them. _

_ “I don’t have anything to prove to you, Schnee.” _

_ “It’s _ fine _ if you’re worried about getting caught,” Weiss says, slurring slightly. “Though Whitley is far and away the least competent of the entire family, so I’m not sure why--” _

_ “I’m not worried!” Blake half-yells, and Yang snorts. _

_ “You’re not doing yourself any favors here, babe,” she says, fingers still moving methodically through Weiss’s hair. _

_ “Rude,” Blake mutters, glaring at her as well, and Yang shrugs. _

_ “I fully believe in your ability to break into Whitley Schnee’s office and run a virus that changes all of the fonts on his computer to wingdings,” Yang says patiently. “You don’t have to prove anything to any of us.” _

_ “I hate all of you,” Blake mutters. “Why am I the punching bag this time?” _

_ “Because it’s fun?” Ruby offers, saluting with her glass. _

_ “Because Ilia isn’t here to make sure we all pick on Ruby instead?” Yang says. _

_ “Abandoned and betrayed forever,” Blake says mournfully, dropping her chin into her hands. “Remind me to never let her take a job without me again.” _

_ “What would it take to get you to do it, if you won’t do it because your best friend asked you to?” Weiss says. _

_ “You guys could arm wrestle for it,” Yang suggests, pulling at Weiss’s hair gently until she tilts her head back to take in Yang’s amusement and scoffs. _

_ “I will do no such thing,” Weiss says. “It’s so-- _ pedestrian _ .” _

_ “Now who’s a coward?” Blake says, leaning forward on her elbows. _

_ "I’m not going to arm wrestle someone who spends her life climbing up the side of buildings,” Weiss snaps out. “It’s a completely unfair advantage.” _

_ “Fine, you pick.” Blake shrugs. “But it can’t be like, you know. One of your rich people sports. That’s also a completely unfair advantage.” _

_ “What exactly does that mean?” _

_ “You fenced for sixteen years,” Blake says with a huff. “There’s no way I’m going up against you on that.” _

_ “Archery!” Ruby yells out. “I love archery.” _

_ Everyone turns slowly towards her, Blake blinking slowly and Weiss’s mouth falling open. _

_ “Archery?” Weiss says. _

_ “That’s a rich person sport,” Blake says. _

_ “Maybe, but I’ve never done it,” Weiss says with a shrug. “Not that it matters, it’s not like we have--” _

_ “I have archery equipment,” Yang says helpfully. _

_ “Of course you do,” Blake mutters. _

_ “So it’s settled, then?” Ruby leaps off the couch, sloshing her cocktail onto the floor and pointing towards the sky. “A contest of wills and arrows!” _

_ “That makes no sense,” Blake says, even as she pushes up to her feet. “But fine. I’m in.” _

_ “Fine,” Weiss echoes. _

_ “What do I get when I win, though?” _

_ “Who says you’re going to win, Belladonna?” Weiss clambors up to her feet as well, Yang following easily and finishing off the braid in her hair and tying it off with a flourish. “I’ll--um--” _

_ “Cut your hair,” Blake says suddenly, eyebrows lifting. “If you win, I’ll screw with your dumb brother, but if I win, you have to cut your hair short.” _

_ Weiss freezes, eyes wide and hands automatically pulling her braid over her shoulder. Blake pauses and then shakes her head, holding her hands up. _

_ “No, you don’t have to do that,” she backtracks. “That’s too much--” _

_ “I’ll do it,” Weiss says with a sharp nod, cutting her off abruptly. “If you beat me, I’ll cut my hair.” _

_ She holds one hand out, proper as always, and glares at Blake until she shakes it hesitantly. _

_ “You’re sure?” _

_ “I’m sure,” Weiss says firmly, only swaying on her feet the tiniest bit. _

_ “To the archery!” Ruby yelps, grabbing at both of their wrists and dragging them to the front door.) _

* * *

“It looks _ so good _,” Ruby squeals out. Her hangover seems to have miraculously disappeared and she’s up and bouncing around, practically running circles around Weiss, who’s staring into the mirror at her hair, cut close along the sides and longer on top. 

“Jesus, Weiss, I can’t believe you didn’t do this sooner,” Blake says slowly. “You’ve _ really _ got the bone structure for it.”

“What, no compliments for me and my crazy good skills?” Yang says. She reaches out and tousles Weiss’s hair with a grin. “You’re welcome, princess, now you’re _ cool _ hot instead of just normal hot.”

Weiss blinks slowly at her reflection, reaching up and running a hand through her hair.

“How do you feel?” Blake says, a hand on her shoulder and eyes locked onto Weiss’s in the mirror.

“I--it’s different,” Weiss says. “I’ve never had short hair before, it’s like-- lighter.”

“Shocking, isn’t it,” Yang says drily. She hipchecks Blake out of the way and steps back to stretch. “Come on, let’s go get brunch, I’m starving after all this hard work.”

“Ooh, brunch,” Ruby says, and she launches herself onto Yang’s back. “Carry me there.”

Weiss’s phone rings, cutting through Ruby starting to chatter about brunch options, and Weiss looks down at the screen and freezes, shoulders stiffening abruptly under Blake’s hand.

“What--oh,” Blake says quietly. She squeezes Weiss’s shoulder and turns around, gesturing towards the door, shooing Yang out and shushing her and Ruby as they go.

“What--”

Blake shushes her again and whispers out “It’s _ Winter _,” just before the door shuts behind them, leaving Weiss alone.

“Winter,” she says calmly into the phone. “What’s wrong? Is Mom--”

“She’s fine,” Winter says, exhaustion dragging out her usually precise syllables into something messier. “I--need to tell you something.”

“If this is about--”

“It’s not,” Winter says sharply. “We got notice this morning about another one of our teams that have been working with the FBI, for an organized crime case, for the last year. They must have gotten close on something because--” She cuts off and breathes audibly over the phone, and Weiss’s fingernails dig into her palm because there’s only agent in the FBI who Winter would be calling about, one name she would be about to bring up--

“There was a shooting,” Winter says, quiet and careful. 

“Winter,” Weiss says shakily.

“She’s in surgery right now,” Winter says, and Weiss’s stomach folds in on itself, the room spinning around her, the hangover pushing at the base of her skull twisting and growing into a blinding ache deep in her ribcage. “Boston General. I knew you would want to--”

“How bad is it?”

“She should be fine, eventually,” Winter says. “There weren’t any lethal injuries, at least. But it’s going to be a long recovery.”

Weiss rights herself and pulls her shoulders back, sucking in a fortifying breath. “I have to go.”

“Weiss, don’t do anything-- I _ know _ what you’re up to now, but don’t try to--”

“Thanks for telling me,” she says, clipped and flat, and hangs up the phone. Her fingers shake as she tucks her phone back into her pocket, and she takes one careful breath before spinning on her heel and marching out of the room and nearly straight into Ruby.

“Is everything okay?” she asks immediately.

“Winter is fine,” Weiss says, speaking carefully. “But I have to go deal with something. I’ll be back in a few days.”

“Weiss,” Blake says, tucked into Yang’s side but reaching for her regardless. Weiss shrinks back and clears her throat, telling herself the flash of hurt in Blake’s eyes is imagined. 

“I have to go,” Weiss says again, and she hurries away, down the hall and away from the rest of them, leaving them staring at her retreating form.

* * *

The hospital lobby is filled with unsettled FBI agents and a collection of DEA agents as well, busy enough that it’s easy for Weiss to lift an FBI jacket from where it’s slung over a chair and slide through the crowd. She’ll never be at Blake’s level of sleight of hand, or have Ilia’s ability to slide into any personality to walk her way into situations, but she’s learned enough and it carries her through the crowd of law enforcement officers and into the elevators.

It’s quieter upstairs, a quiet tension hanging heavy through the corridors, and Weiss keeps her shoulders square and confidence level, stalking past nurses and doctors who don’t bother second guessing that she belongs. She doesn’t hesitate until she turns a corner and there, right in front of her, is Jaune Arc with his arm in a sling.

“Weiss?” he says stupidly.

“Hey, Jaune,” she says, quiet and careful and somehow wholly unprepared. Of course he would have been there, of course they all would have, walking specters of a life she used to have; sure enough, looking up from where they’re sprawled in a bank of chairs, there are Nora and Ren.

“Weiss,” they both says, and Weiss shrugs her way out of the FBI jacket hastily.

“Hey,” she says. “Are you all okay?”

“Are we-- where have you _ been _ , Weiss?” Jauna snaps out. “It’s been six _ years _, you just disappeared, you--”

“Jaune,” Weiss says carefully. “Are you okay?” 

“I--yes,” he says, deflating. “Through and through, she-- took the brunt of it.”

“Of course she did,” Weiss says, pushing her hands against her eyes and sucking in a deep breath. “Where is she?”

Nora, normally so bright and loud, points silently at a room across the hall, her eyes heavy with distrust that Weiss can’t counter, not after walking out of everyone’s life so unceremoniously so long ago. Jaune steps out of her way, jaw clenching and eyes snapping with frustration, and it’s only Ren who doesn’t look ready to punch her.

Weiss pauses at the door, hand on the doorknob, and almost looks back, almost apologizes, almost explains. Instead, she takes a careful breath to steady herself and slides into the room, shutting the door with a soft click behind her and bringing herself face to face, for the first time in years, with Pyrrha.

She doesn’t look good, her shoulder heavy with bandages and dressings and with metal rods protruding from an arm in traction, which must have shattered; her hair’s limp and dull, her lips cracked, her gaze heavy and drugged. She doesn’t look good, except for the part where she does because she looks like everything Weiss forced herself to leave, like the years they’d had together, like the future Weiss had been so sure of at one point.

She opens her eyes slowly, and Weiss freezes, one hand still on the door behind her, and wishes desperately for Blake, for Ruby, for Yang and Ilia and the constant steadying presence of her team at her side.

“Hi,” Weiss says stupidly.

“You cut your hair,” Pyrrha says after a moment, with something that could almost be a smile; it pulls at her cracked lips and she winces, her eyes squeezing shut, and Weiss digs her fingernails into her own arm. “It looks good.”

Weiss uproots herself from the door, sitting carefully into the chair at her bedside and folding her hands in her lap to keep from reaching for Pyrrha.

“What happened?” she says quietly. “I mean, I know, at a high level, but not really.”

“Well, you know,” Pyrrha says, wincing again when a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes pulls at her injuries. “If they start shooting at you, that’s when you know you’re on track, right?”

“Pyrrha, please.”

“Weiss,” she says softly, and it burns into Weiss’s chest, the familiarity of her name from Pyrrha’s lips, the exhaustion underwriting it, the way Pyrrha has always been the kindest person Weiss ever met and Weiss still abandoned her. “Where have you been?”

“I--it’s a long story,” she says, focusing down on her clenched hands. 

“I’m not going anywhere, if you couldn’t tell.”

Weiss breathes in deeply and closes her eyes, focuses on her heartbeat, focuses on her breathing, focuses on holding herself steady and anything that isn’t Pyrrha, right in front of her after so many years, broken and damaged and somehow still looking at Weiss like she loves her.

“Please just tell me what happened. Tell me who did this.”

“You know I can’t,” Pyrrha says gently.

“I can find out if I need to,” Weiss says. “I have a-- friend.”

“And here I thought you’d given up on having friends,” Pyrrha says. It’s the closest Weiss has ever seen her come to bitterness and still barely scrapes the surface of what she’s earned, given the history between them, but it buries itself in Weiss’s chest and ignites against her ribs, sharp and aching.

“I’m sorry,” Weiss whispers, unable to look up from her clenched hands. “For leaving the way I did.”

“Me too,” Pyrrha says. She shifts in the bed and groans and it snaps through Weiss and she’s suddenly on her feet, hands out and hovering. 

“What is it? Do you need--”

“I’m okay,” Pyrrha says, even with her eyes clenched shut and voice tight around the pain. She breathes carefully, shallowly, and opens her eyes slowly and catches Weiss’s gaze. “I’m okay, Weiss. All of this will heal.”

“Stop being strong and let me be worried about you!” Weiss snaps without meaning to, and then immediately slaps a hand over her mouth. “I-- I’m so sorry, that was-- completely out of line.”

“Is it out of line because you left me, or because you came back after six years with no warning?”

“Pyrrha, I--” Weiss locks her hands behind her back and breathes in deeply. “I know I don’t have any right to be here, but I am, so please just-- let me help.”

“I can’t just tell you about a case,” Pyrrha says. “I-- especially not now.” She presses her lips together, fighting the way her eyes keep sliding shut, and Weiss’s hands ache with familiarity and how much they want to reach for Pyrrha, so much that she feels it in her teeth. “Just trust that we can deal with it, okay? Please?”

Her uninjured hand turns out, palm up, and her fingers twitch. Weiss reaches out automatically, taking her hand in both of hers and holding it carefully, gentle over bruised knuckles. The architecture of Pyrrha’s hand is familiar under her fingers, the arc of her lifeline and the misalignment of her ring finger from breaking it in a soccer tournament when she was fourteen, and Weiss stares down at a new scar between her knuckles, one that hadn’t been there before-- before when Weiss hadn’t left, before when they were together, before when Weiss had everything but nothing that mattered as much as the future she could see with Pyrrha.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, down towards Pyrrha’s hand, tracing over the unfamiliar scar. “I never stopped missing you. Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did.” She drags her head up to meet Pyrrha’s silence, and smiles humorlessly at the fact that Pyrrha’s fallen asleep. She grants herself just a few more minutes, sitting next to Pyrrha’s sleeping form, lips pressed tight together.

Her back protests when she finally stands, and she carefully unwinds her hands from Pyrrha’s, settles her hand gently onto the bed. It takes longer than she’d like to turn around, but when she does she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin and marches out of the room.

Jaune’s still there, slumped in the chair Nora had occupied earlier. The hallway is empty except for them, and Weiss links her hands behind her back when he looks up at her with red-rimmed eyes, his tie loose at his neck and hair a disaster.

“She’s sleeping,” Weiss says. “You’ll stay?”

“Weiss,” he says slowly. “What are you going to--”

“I’m going to find who did this,” Weiss says, thin and shaking. 

“What does that even mean?” He leans on his uninjured arm and stares up at her, exhaustion pushing at his shoulders. 

“You really don’t want to know.”

“You don’t get to march back in here after all this time and act like this,” he snaps. “You left her, Weiss. You _ left _ her, you left all of us.”

“I don’t care what you think of me,” she throws back. “I’m not here to ask for your forgiveness.”

“Then why _ are _ you here? For Pyrrha? Because you _ care _?” 

“Of course I care!” Her hands shake behind her back, her resolve wavering and spine giving way under a wave of fatigue, of fear, of stress. 

“You’ve got a shitty way of showing it, then.” He pushes up to his feet and towers over her, and Weiss glares back up at him as best she can when her whole body wants to crumple. “What the hell makes you think you have the right to stomp back into her life and--”

“Jaune, please,” she whispers. “Just let me go, okay? Please. I need to-- I have to deal with this.”

He stares down at her, the muscle in his jaw working visibly, and she nearly wilts under his anger until he finally sits back down. 

“Thank you,” she says quietly. She glances back once more towards Pyrrha’s door and closes her eyes, refuses to go back inside and curl up at her bedside and never leave again. Instead she walks off, measuring her steps carefully to keep her mind occupied.

“She still loves you, you know.” Jaune’s voice stops her short, and her chest nearly explodes at the words. “She still thinks the best of you. She doesn’t see it.”

“See what?” She doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear whatever scathing assessment he has to offer, doesn’t want to face down all of the worst things she’s ever done, but she says it anyways.

“That you’re a coward, Weiss Schnee.” He drops his head back against the wall behind him, eyes shut, and Weiss’s ribcage deflates.

“I know,” she says quietly, and walks away from Pyrrha again.

* * *

The lobby’s still filled with agents, and Weiss slides through the crowd easily, head down and arms wrapped around her stomach. It’s dark outside; the flight to Boston, filled with worry and chewing on her fingernails, had taken most of the day from her before she’d even gotten in to see Pyrrha. She doesn’t have a suitcase or a coat or a plan of any kind, but she takes a right out of the building and sets off into the cold in search of a place to stay.

She makes it half a block before someone steps into her path and she barely stops herself from walking into them.

“Watch where you’re--” Her glare drops immediately when she looks up to see Blake standing in front of her, arms folded over her chest. “What are you--”

“We followed you,” Blake says simply. She shrugs out of her coat and folds it over Weiss’s shoulders. “Come on, the others are back at the hotel.”

“You followed me?”

“Obviously we followed you,” Blake says with a huff. She wraps an arm around Weiss’s shoulders and sets off walking, propelling her along. “The look on your face? Of course we weren’t going to let you deal with whatever this is alone.”

Weiss stumbles to a stop, throat aching and eyes burning, and nearly loses the coat entirely when she wraps her arms around Blake and holds tight. She can’t find the words, can’t put a voice to the way her lungs feel full of water and her chest is burning, but she clings to Blake and buries her face in her shoulder, fingers digging into her back.

“Come on,” Blake says quietly. “Hotel’s a few blocks away.” She keeps ahold of Weiss and sets off again, not letting go, and guides her through the crowded sidewalks and the hotel lobby, not letting go until she has to dig a keycard out of her pocket and let them in to the room.

Ruby’s there almost immediately, stopping abruptly six inches away and waiting for Weiss to nod, thin and wobbling, before slamming into her for a hug. Yang follows more slowly, hanging back and skimming her fingertips down Blake’s arm, waiting until Ruby’s stepped back to wrap Weiss up in a hug as well.

“Ilia’s flying in too,” she says, one hand cradling the back of Weiss’s head, and Weiss’s eyes burn. She pushes her forehead harder into Yang’s shoulder, solid and unyielding and everything Weiss needs to keep some level of composure because her team, her friends, her _ family _ are all here, in Boston, for her. “She’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” she finally manages to say. She doesn’t stop them when they move her over to the couch in the suite, doesn’t argue when Ruby settles at her side and doesn’t budge, doesn’t say anything when Blake settles at her other side. A bottle of water appears in front of her, dangling from Yang’s hand, and she shakes her head; Yang whips it away and offers the glass of whiskey in her other hand with a wide smile.

“Thanks,” she mumbles again, rotating the glass slowly in her hands,one foot tapping rapidly on the floor. “I know I have a lot to explain.”

“Take your time,” Yang says, dropping down to sit on the floor and lean back on her hands. “We’ve got nowhere else to be.”

Weiss takes a small sip of the whiskey, and then a larger one, tilting her head back and settling into the burn that reaches down towards her toes, Ruby’s hand on her knee and Blake’s on her shoulder outposts of calm in the midst of all of her fidgeting.

“Winter called to tell me about an FBI sting that went bad,” she says eventually. “Winter, she, uh-- she’s DEA. She was the only one of us that never wanted to go into business. It’s why she’s the only one I still talk to, sometimes.”

Ruby’s hand squeezes at her knee, and Weiss blows out a slow breath.

“You know how we always send marks to the FBI on bigger jobs, right?” she says. She doesn’t look away from her whiskey, waiting for hums of acknowledgment from the three of them. “That wasn’t an accident. I knew-- know someone, someone I trust, who I could route cases to. Not that she ever knew, but I still knew that everything would be in good hands with her. Even if it wasn’t her jurisdiction, she would get it to whoever it needed to be with.”

“Is she okay?” Ruby asks, eyes wide and shining in Weiss’s periphery. 

“She will be,” Weiss says. She’s can’t pinpoint the last time her own voice sounded so small, so young. “It’s-- there weren’t any life-threatening injuries, but...” She trails off for a long set of seconds, pulling her gaze up enough to look at Yang,with her bright eyes and easy smile that suddenly fades. “Looks like her arm was shattered. Not as bad as it could have been, but it’s not good.”

Blake’s hand tightens on Weiss’s shoulder, and Weiss knows before turning that her focus has snapped over to Yang. She turns enough to pull her shoulder out of Blake’s hand and tilts her head towards Yang, some small show of understanding a triumph that she hadn’t expected from herself. Blake hesitates for just a moment before sliding off the couch to settle at Yang’s side, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

It would normally draw an eye roll from Weiss, their constant affection more than she ever wants to see, especially in a shared apartment, but for now it calms her, settles her fraying edges, and she smiles at the two of them and leans further into Ruby’s side. Yang takes a slow breath in and lets it out and nods at Weiss, pushing the focus back to her.

“I had to see her,” Weiss says quietly. “Winter told me she was going to be okay, but I had to-- I needed to see it. For myself.”

“You love her,” Ruby says, just as quiet, hand still steady on Weiss’s knee, and Weiss swallows the rest of her whiskey in one go. Ruby’s always been too perceptive for her own good.

“We were together for almost six years,” she says, staring down into her glass. “And then my life fell apart and I-- left.”

“Your FBI contact is your ex?” Yang says slowly, one eyebrow arching skywards, and Blake slaps at her stomach lightly.

“Why’d you leave?” Blake says, dodging the elbow Yang shoves her way. 

“I was scared,” Weiss says, and she laughs dully. “I--everything I’d found out about my father’s company, she knew everything I was challenging him with, she helped me piece it all together, and I was young and arrogant and thought that I could beat him, and it blew up in my face. He-- well, you all know.” 

She pauses, stares down at her hands, at the almost empty glass she’s holding too tightly to, breathing carefully against the rush of cold washing over her at the open secret that is the way her father had fabricated a collection of crimes to pin on her until she signed everything she had over to her brother, how he’d ripped her life out from under her. 

“He was always cruel and vindictive, he always hated that I was with a woman. She was-- collateral, I guess. A standing threat to keep me in line. If he could ruin my career as easily as he did, he could ruin hers. So I left.”

Her posture finally breaks for good and she slumps forward, elbows digging into her knees and head falling into her hands, one deep shuddering breath after another shaking her frame. Ruby curls around her, hands solid and chin digging into her shoulder, and holds on tight while Weiss does her best to pull herself together.

“It’s weird not having a bunch of hair in my mouth when I hug you,” Ruby mumbles eventually, and it startles something that could pass for a laugh out of Weiss. She slumps back into the couch, Ruby flopping back with her, and wipes at her eyes and stares up at the ceiling.

“How can we help?” Yang stretches one of her long legs out and nudges at her shin with a foot. 

“What?”

“How can we help?” Ruby echoes. 

“I’m always down for ruining Jacques Schnee,” Black suggests lazily.

“Oh, I can find so much dirt on him,” Ruby says. “That’s like fish in a barrel levels of easy. No offense, Weiss, but your dad is the _ worst _.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Weiss says up to the ceiling. She drags her chin back down to look at Yang and Blake, at Ruby. “I can’t go back. There’s-- there’s too much there that can’t be undone. But I want to find whoever did this to her.”

“The organized crime case?”

“Yeah,” Weiss says grimly. “I want to find them and I want to hurt them.”

“_ That _ I can get behind,” Yang says with a wide grin, the one that always makes Weiss smile as well, big and bright and infectious. “Let’s go fuck up some mobsters.”

Weiss leans her head against Ruby’s and some of the burning tension that had pushed at her ribcage from the inside out all day, that had doubled at Pyrrha in a hospital bed and doubled again when Jaune had looked at her like a piece of dirt on his shoe, unwinds and pulls back and fades away, because her team, her _ family _, followed her to Boston to be there for her.

“Let’s fuck up some mobsters,” she echoes, and Yang lets out an cheer.

* * *

Weiss crashes an hour into research and planning, her body finally giving up after a day filled with adrenaline and confrontations, too tired to protest when Yang picks her up easily and settles her on the bed and returns to the discussion with Blake and Ruby as if there’d been no interruption. Weiss falls the rest of the way into sleep listening to the three of them talking quietly on the other side of the room, warm and easy. They technically have four rooms rented in the hotel, connected but separate, but she wakes up the center of a dogpile of bodies on the enormous bed that had been meant for just Blake and Yang, sandwiched between them with Ruby sprawled out on Blake’s other side, when the door to the room opens and Ilia slides in silently. 

“Hey,” Ilia says quietly, toeing out of her shoes and forever steady. She settles on Yang’s other side and reaches over enough to find Weiss’s hand and squeeze it. “They all caught me up.”

“Thanks for coming,” Weiss whispers. The words catch in her throat.

“You know me,” Ilia says with a shrug. “I’m always here to take on a mob or two.” She gives up her hold on Weiss’s hand, only to roll her eyes when Yang grumbles, half-asleep, and yanks her arm back into place until she’s holding onto Weiss’s side. 

“Go to sleep, jerk,” Yang mutters without opening her eyes, reaching past Weiss to tangle her fingers in Blake’s shirt and burrowing her face further into Weiss’s shoulder. 

Ilia lifts her head up enough to roll her eyes and mouth _ I like your hair _ at Weiss before curling against Yang’s back. 

It’s long minutes before Weiss drifts back off to sleep, guilt aching in her ribcage and the comforting chorus of deep even breaths around her battling against it.

* * *

Weiss settles down on the couch next to Ruby, two cups of coffee in her hands. 

“This is easy, you know,” Ruby says without looking away from her laptop. Weiss sips on her coffee and lifts on eyebrow sleepily. 

“What is?”

“Finding evidence of about sixty million dollars worth of illegal activities over the last seventeen years.” Ruby reaches out blindly to grab her coffee, missing entirely and nearly upending both mugs until Weiss leans back and manages to shove one of them into her reaching hand. “They’re running it all through a series of shell companies but the information is all _ there _. There are terabytes of evidence just sitting around--”

“Waiting for someone with a _ warrant _ to get access to them,” Weiss says, rolling her eyes. “We’re breaking the law. That’s easier than doing things the right way.”

“Doing things the _ legal _ way,” Ruby corrects, still not looking away, slurping on her coffee. Behind them, Blake shuffles by, still waking up, and hums in agreement with Ruby. “Just because it’s not legal doesn’t mean we aren’t doing the right thing.”

“For entirely selfish reasons,” Weiss says into her coffee. Yang appears behind her, leaning over the couch and stealing Weiss’s coffee, other hand running through Ruby’s hair lazily. 

“I mean, there’s an argument to be made that since they shot up an FBI team that we’re just, you know,” Yang says through a yawn. “Picking up where the law left off.”

“Hey, do you guys want to see Weiss’s ex?” Ruby says suddenly, finally looking away from her computer. “I have her personnel--”

“Ruby!” Weiss snaps, but it’s overwhelmed by the others yelling out in agreement, even Ilia, who’s barely awake, still sprawled out on the bed. Weiss slumps back against the couch with a groan. “I hate you all.”

“Sure you do, princess,” Blake drawls out, sliding into Yang’s side with a cup of coffee of her own. She yawns and glances down at Ruby’s laptop screen, freezing with her mouth wide open. “Shit, Wiess, she’s _ hot _.”

“Pretty sure that’s an understatement,” Yang says, eyes wide. “Way to _ go _, Schnee. I never figured you for being into red--”

“If you’re all quite done,” Weiss snaps out. She reaches over to snap Ruby’s laptop shut, but Ruby disappears off the couch in a flash, laptop held high over her head. “Weren’t we in the middle of--”

“Tracking down the bad guys who shot your supremely hot ex-girlfriend?” Yang offers, and Weiss groans and drops her head into her hands.

“I need more coffee,” she mumbles out.

“And we need a plan,” Ilia says, mercifully, finally functionally awake. 

“We have a plan,” Blake says. She disentangles from Yang, ignoring the whine it elicits, and shuffles back over to the kitchen, starting the Keurig on another cup of coffee. “Track down the person who set up the trigger team.”

“One!” Yang says cheerfully, flinging one hand out with a finger raised.

“Ilia goes in as a launderer from out of state.”

“Two!”

“Convinces them to set up a partnership.”

“Three!”

“Yang shows up as FBI tracking them down and lets them see her.”

“I don’t like that part,” Yang says with a momentary frown.

“Ilia pretends to back out until they admit they ordered a hit on an FBI team to deal with the issue.”

“Five!”

“And then we have it all on record, package them all up nicely, and send it all to the FBI,” Blake finishes, and dumps milk into one of the mugs in front of her, milk and sugar into another one. She collects all four of them in both hands and carries them over, setting them on the coffee table lazily. “Easy.”

Weiss sighs and rolls her head on her neck until her spine cracks. “So easy,” she says flatly. She takes the mug with sugar and hands it blindly back to Yang, then one of the plain ones to Ilia, claiming the one with milk for herself. “Forgive me if I’m on edge.”

“Forgiven,” Ilia says with a grin that’s too much like Yang for anyone’s comfort, except Yang, who offers her a high five. “It’s a good plan, Weiss. We’ve taken on harder jobs than this.”

“And you’re all _ sure _ you’re--”

“Yes,” they all say in unison, loud enough that Weiss spills coffee onto the couch.

“Seriously, Weiss,” Ruby says, uncharacteristically solemn. She closes her laptop and sets it aside, reclaiming her seat by Weiss and grabbing for one of her hands. “Let us do this, okay? We’re a team, and we’ve got you.”

Weiss is quiet, staring down into her coffee, even as she grips tighter at Ruby’s hand and sucks in a slow breath.

“Also for what it’s worth I definitely hacked the hospital and set up an alert that triggers if anything changes with Pyrrha’s condition,” Ruby adds. “It’s only a little bit unsettling how easy it was to do.”

“Easy for _ you _,” Ilia says with a yawn, leaning against Yang tiredly. “Not really the best litmus test.” 

“We need supplies,” Blake says suddenly, eyes fixed on Weiss. “And Weiss, you need clothes. Let’s go shopping.”

“What?” It’s enough to startle her into blinking. 

“Divide and conquer.” Blake swallows the rest of her coffee and stands up. “You guys go get all of Ruby’s tech toys she needs--”

“They’re not _ toys _,” Ruby says indignantly.

“--and we’re going to go get you some clothes, because you have literally been wearing the same thing for almost three days now.”

Weiss glances down at her shirt, wrinkled and rumpled, and tracks back to the last time she showered, before Boston, before cutting her hair off, before a monumental hangover and a bet with Blake. “Oh,” she mumbles. 

“Yeah, you look terrible,” Yang says drily. “At least your hair is on point.” She ruffles her hand through Weiss’s hair lazily, grinning wide and bright when Weiss starts to protest but instead just leans into it after a moment.

“Okay,” Weiss says eventually. “Let’s go shopping, I guess.”

Ruby and Yang and Ilia leave first, Yang carrying Ilia piggyback because she’s still half asleep and Ruby chattering excitedly about some computer or another she’s going to buy. Weiss drags herself up to standing, exhaustion and anxiety still dragging her shoulders down, and Blake rolls her eyes and shoves her back down onto the couch.

“Hey--”

“How’re you doing?” Blake says, arms folded over her chest. 

“I’m fine,” Weiss says indignantly.

“Yeah, right.” Blake rolls her eyes and settles down on the couch. “Come on, Weiss. Talk to me.”

Weiss presses her palms against her eyes, breathing in shakily and trying not to focus on the ache in her chest. 

“How did I get here?” she says after a long moment. She props her chin in her hands, slumping tiredly over her knees and staring at Blake. “I had a great life, I had Pyrrha, my sister, my-- I had everything, and now it’s all gone and Pyrrha could have _ died _ and I wouldn’t have been there.”

Blake pulls her knees up towards her chest, leaning her chin on one of them and tilting her head. “I broke into your parents’ house a lot,” she says.

“Trust me, all nine times, we never heard the end of it from dear old dad,” Weiss says drily.

“More like sixteen,” Blake says with a shrug. “There are a _ lot _ of forgeries in that house now.”

Weiss barks out a laugh, shaking her head, because of course Blake was better at her job than they’d ever known, smarter than the best security that Jacques Schnee’s money could buy. 

“I didn’t start out as a thief, you know,” Blake says. “I was-- I was more into the whole political protest anti-fascist thing than the stealing thing. I just happened to be good at the whole, you know, infiltration bit, and the people I worked with knew it.” She pushes a hand through her hair absently. “One of the first times I broke in, I was only sixteen. We were going after some, I don’t know, I don’t remember. Something to expose one of your father’s myriad of corporate crimes, I guess. We knew it was a good time to break in because there was a big party going on.” 

She tilts her head towards Weiss. “The younger Schnee daughter was having a sweet sixteen. The whole family was supposed to be there.”

“Can’t believe you crashed my birthday, you jerk,” Weiss mutters, even as she smiles thinly, because she knows where this story is going.

“We walked away empty handed because we’d assumed that he would be at the party. With his daughter, with his family, not holed up in his office bitching at a bunch of overseas investors about lowering labor costs so he could inflate quarterly earnings.” Blake unwraps one of her arms from her shins and pulls at Weiss’s wrist until she can hold onto her hand. 

“Your father’s always been a shitty person and an even worse father, Weiss. Everything you lost was because of him, not because of you. You did the right thing and you trusted the system and it ruined your life. That isn’t your fault. It’s terrible, but it’s not because of _ you _ . You didn’t lose things, you didn’t lose your life, you didn’t lose Pyrrha. It was all-- _ she _ was taken from you. That’s not on you.”

Weiss breathes in shakily, wondering what went askew in the universe that in this new life she’s built, this new family, the best friend she’s ever had is the thief that targeted her family over and over their whole lives. Her lungs ache and her posture breaks and she leans over, falling slowly until Blake sets her feet back on the ground so Weiss can curl up with her head in Blake’s lap, Blake’s hands falling automatically to her hair.

“The short hair really does look great, you know,” Blake says conversationally, as if she hadn’t just put into words everything Weiss hadn’t known she needed to hear for years, and Weiss huffs out a sigh and rolls onto her back, staring up at Blake.

“One day you’re going to tell me about your radical political activist criminal activities, you know,” she says. “When you’re up for it.”

Blake’s hand stalls in her hair, her eyes glazing over defensively for a brief moment, and Weiss waits, breathes, revels in even just a moment of being able to focus on someone else’s needs instead of the constant burning guilt and fury scalding the inside of her chest.

“I see how much you follow politics, more than any of us,” Weiss adds quietly. “And I know how much of your own money you put into it, and that every time you disappear on some job on your own you’re really off volunteering at some domestic violence shelter or another. I don’t know everything, but I can put the pieces together, Blake. And I know you talk to Yang about it, and that’s good, because she’s your partner. But if you ever want to talk to someone else, then I’m here.” 

“I know,” Blake says, hardly louder than a whisper. She takes a wavering breath of her own, and then another, and Weiss sits up and pivots until she can wrap her arms around Blake and hold on tight. Blake’s uneven breaths are shaking her entire form, and Weiss holds on tighter, focusing on the pinpoints of pressure in her arms where Blake’s fingertips are digging in and holding tight. “Wasn’t I supposed to be taking care of you?”

“Shut up, you moron,” Weiss mumbles into her shoulder. “We’re a team.”

“Right,” Blake says, voice cracking on the word, and she sucks in a deep breath. “Come on, let’s go get you some clean clothes. You’re looking rough, princess.”

“Har har,” Weiss says drily. She pulls back and lets Blake bounce up to her feet, suddenly buzzing with nervous energy the way she always does when she’s in a situation she doesn’t want to be in, the way she had so often been when she and Yang had existed somewhere between casually fucking on every third job and actually settling into a functional relationship. She pushes up to her own feet and shoves her hands into her pockets, tilting her head towards the door. “Shall we? If you’re nice, I’ll even buy you breakfast.”

“Oh, please,” Blake scoffs, looping an arm through hers. “Like you’re not doing that anyways. When Yang isn’t here it’s totally your job to buy me things.”

* * *

They’re two blocks shy of the hotel, arms filled with shopping bags because flinging money at new clothes has always been a distraction for Weiss, when Ilia strolls up between them and matches their pace smoothly.

“So,” she says casually, offloading some of the bags from each of them for a more even distribution. “Good news or bad news first?”

Weiss lets out a groan. “Seriously?”

“Fine, good news first,” Ilia says, rolling her eyes. “We’re all set and stocked up on what we need, and Yang tracked down our trigger team. They’re going to be meeting tomorrow over at a warehouse in the docks, so we have a time and place to get the ball rolling.”

“And the bad news?”

“The bad news,” Ilia says with a huff. “Is that the FBI is staking out our hotel.”

Weiss stops abruptly, nearly dropping the bags in her hands. “What?”

Ilia unlocks her phone and offers it to Weiss with a shrug, a picture pulled up of a van parked across the street from the hotel, a familiar blond head half-visible through one of the windows.

“Goddammit,” she mutters. “I’ll-- deal with it.”

“We can just relocate,” Blake starts, cutting off when Weiss shakes her head sharply. 

“That’s Pyrrha’s partner,” she says quietly. “He-- let me talk to him.”

"Partner like at the FBI or partner like--"

"At the FBI," Weiss rushes out.

“He’ll listen to you?” Ilia says, careful and gentle, and Weiss sucks in a deep breath, lets it out, nods.

“I’ll deal with it,” she says, and hands her bags over to the two of them. Neither of them move, watching her appraisingly, and Weiss glares half-heartedly at them. “I’m fine, okay? Just-- take a detour on the way back, I’ll talk to him.” 

She marches off before they can talk her out of it, stalking up the opposite side of the street from the hotel until Jaune’s van comes into view, and climbs into the passenger seat unceremoniously.

“What the--”

“Stop following me,” Weiss says firmly, glaring at the gun in his hand. “And for God’s sake, put that away unless you’re actually going to shoot me.”

“What are you playing at, Weiss?” he says, even as he holsters his gun, the movement awkward with one arm still in a sling.

“Nothing that concerns you. Stop following me.”

“You’re planning something, I know you are,” he throws back. “I _ know _ you, I know you’re up to something.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Weiss says, low and even. “Don’t delude yourself into thinking you have some insight into--”

“I know you’re tracking down the people who shot her,” he says over her. “And I know that the supposed consulting firm you work at is bullshit, because your degenerate ‘associates’ are a thief and the most wanted hacker on the planet and a dumb lump of black ops muscle--”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll shoot your other shoulder,” Weiss says automatically, anger rising in her chest. “They aren’t degenerates, they’re good people. Stop acting like you have some moral high ground to stand on, Jaune. You could be going after the people her hurt her but instead you’re on some personal vendetta--”

“Who says I’m not going after the people who hurt her? You’re sitting right here,” he snaps out, and it lances deep into Weiss’s chest, spearing through her anger and defensiveness. 

“I’m going to find the people who shot her,” Wiess says after a long moment. “And you can stay out of my way, or I can call in the suspicious van in downtown Boston to the state police and see if they send a SWAT team or a bomb squad after you.”

“I’m FBI--”

“You’re benched right now and you know it,” Weiss says over him. “Standard protocol after getting _ shot _ on the job, as if that completely non-regulation Sig you’re carrying isn’t proof enough. You’re on your own. Maybe Ren and Nora will help, but you don’t have a badge or a case or any authority to hide behind right now and you know it. So I’ll say it again: stay out of my way, or I will be sure you’re chained to a desk for the next ten years of your career.”

She punctuates it with a nod, grim and sharp, and is almost out the door when he speaks again, his voice aching with exhaustion, head dropping back against the back of his seat and rolling over to stare at her tiredly.

“You’re going to disappear again after this, aren’t you.” It isn’t a question, and she doesn’t take it as one, doesn’t answer, doesn’t do anything but breathe as steadily as she can and pretend her knuckles haven’t gone white around the door handle. “Waltzing back in her like some white knight after abandoning her, breaking her heart, _ leaving _ her because you didn’t know how to live your life without a billion-dollar trust fund, and now you show up again like you have some right to be part of her life when it suits you, and then you’re going to leave again.”

Defensiveness builds in her ribs and up into her chest, pressing against her sternum and filling her lungs, and she swallows the instinct to tell him everything, to tell him why, to tell him that she never wanted to leave.

“Why are you _ here _, Weiss? Are you trying to get her back? Or are you just unwilling to let go of her even after you left her? You don’t want her but you still feel like you have some right to be in her life when you want to be. At least have the nerve to say goodbye to her this time when you fuck off again,” he adds with a sneer. “She deserves that, at least.”

Her voice shakes more than she wants to admit when she speaks again. “Leave, Jaune. Stay out of my way.” She slams the door behind her and stalks across the street to the hotel, shooting glares back over her shoulder periodically until the van’s engine starts. She makes it to the elevator before everything he’d said collapses down on top of her, pushing against her shoulders and her ribcage and her spine, weighing heavily with every venomous accusation he’d thrown her way.

The elevator opens onto their floor and Yang is there, about to step in, and Weiss walks right into her and buries her face against Yang’s shoulder instead.

“Want me to break his legs?” Yang offers, holding Weiss easily as the elevator shuts behind her. “Because I can do that. Just say the word. No one ever has to know.”

Weiss laughs, sharp and aching, into her shoulder, and holds on tighter, shaking her head minutely. “No,” she mumbles out. “But maybe later.”

“You’re the boss,” Yang says cheerfully. She wraps an arm around Weiss’s shoulders and pulls her into her side, walking the both of them back to the room. “But I have to say, boss lady, new clothes or not, you gotta shower. You’re gross.”

“You’re gross,” Weiss mumbles, digging an elbow halfheartedly into her side, but she doesn’t protest as she’s manhandled into the room and deposited in the bathroom immediately. The door shuts behind her, leaving her alone in the bathroom, but she can hear the rest of them outside, talking through the plan, Ruby chattering on about shell companies and Ilia pacing around, studying up on the organization members she’s going to be swindling tomorrow, Yang offering commentary and Blake’s low laugh floating out occasionally, and Weiss breathes in deep and closes her eyes, listening.

* * *

“Weiss,” Yang hisses out, voice crackling over the comms. “The dumb FBI guy is _ here _.”

“What?” Weiss’s eyes snap over to the monitors filling the back of the van she crammed into with Ruby. “Seriously?”

“He’s shit at-- he’s going to blow this whole thing,” Yang mutters. She’s positioned off to the side of the warehouse, out of sight from where Ilia and Blake are spinning lies into gold and convincing a collection of mobsters to go into business with her, ready to fake being seen on her way out of the warehouse to set things in motion. Directly across from her, though, barely hidden among piles of crates, is Jaune, about to blow their entire plan.

“Yang, go now,” Weiss hurries out. “We can still have enough on the recording if they see you now, but we’re screwed if they see him.”

“I hate this guy so much,” Yang grumbles. She huffs out a sigh and rolls her eyes, kicks a foot out at one of the stacks of boxes she’s hiding behind. It screeches six inches across the floor and a dozen guns suddenly point her way, and she holds back the instinct to grin at them and sprints off instead, sure to take just enough time for them to see the _ FBI _ emblazoned across her jacket. 

“Yang,” Weiss says quietly once she’s clear, launching herself up a fire escape and around a corner before anyone can catch her. “Can you get him out of there without being seen?”

“Now am I allowed to break his legs?”

“Ideally, no,” Weiss says, and Yang rolls her eyes. 

“Fine, ruin my fun,” she says, hopping down the fire escape lightly and landing in a crouch in the alley. The shoddy excuse for a perimeter guard is easy to dodge and she sidles back into the warehouse, slipping from shadow to shadow silently until she’s right behind Jaune. 

“Hey, dipshit.” She has an arm around his throat before he can speak and a hand over his mouth for good measure, shushing him softly, and backs out of the warehouse out of sight, to the van where Ruby and Weiss are waiting. The door opens and she lets him go, shoving him into the van and following easily. “Got a delivery for you, princess.”

“Jaune,” Weiss says thinly. “I told you to stay out of this.”

“What the _ hell _ are you playing at?” he half-yells, and Yang slaps at the back of his head sharply.

“Watch your manners, or she might let me actually break your legs.” 

“You’re not breaking his legs,” Weiss says with a sigh, even if she’s half-smiling when she says it, and Yang shrugs and stretches, deliberately ignoring the way he’s glaring at all three of them.

“Let me out of here,” Jaune grinds out. “I’m about to--”

“You’re about to blow everything,” Weiss says over him. “And if you do that, you get my teammates killed, and then Yang _ will _ break your legs.”

He blinks at her, posture slackening abruptly. “What?”

“I told you I was dealing with this,” Weiss says quietly. “If you’d waited half an hour, you would’ve had a recorded confession of that-- _ man _ in there ordering the hit on Pyrrha.” Her hands shake in her lap, the derailment of the plan launching her straight back into the rage and fear that had been beating against her ribcage since Winter called her. 

“We got it,” Ruby says suddenly, yanking the headphones off. “Ilia got the order, it’s on video.”

Weiss closes her eyes and breathes in slowly, unwilling to accept all the eyes on her at the moment, because her hands are shaking and her shoulders tight and exhaustion is sweeping over her because the person who hurt Pyrrha is going to be in prison for the rest of his life.

“Jaune,” she says, eyes still closed for an extra beat before she fixes a glare on him. He wavers, for the first time looking scared of her, and it steadies her pulse. “Go home. We’re handling this. Don’t follow me again.”

Yang grabs him by the arm, politely avoiding his gunshot wound, and manhandles him out of the van easily. “You heard her,” she says quietly, hand locked onto his shoulder tight enough that it’ll surely leave bruises and he grinds his teeth together against the pain. “Listen to her this time, or you’ll find out exactly what a dumb lump of black ops muscle is capable of.”

“How did you--”

“I bugged your phone,” Ruby says without looking away from her computer. “Your security is shit, for the record.”

Yang shoves him away and smiles placidly until he backs away, hand out and eyes finding Weiss once again, for the first time that she can remember with confusion instead of anger.

“You’re not going to hurt him, Yang,” Weiss says once he’s gone, ostensibly scolding but smiling in spite of it. She climbs out of the van and leans against Yang’s side for a moment, eyes closed, and doesn’t flinch when Ruby appears at her other side and flops against her for a hug. 

“Come on,” she says after a moment. “Let’s go wrap this up.”

“Finally,” Yang says with a groan. “I’ve been in the mood to hit something for _ ages _.” 

“You’re always in the mood to hit someone,” Ruby says, following them in to the warehouse.

“Only when people really deserve it,” Yang says with a shrug. 

“Are you sure about that?” Weiss says.

“More or less. Hi,” she adds to the guard blinking suddenly at them, gun in his hand, and punches him in the face. “Wow, that felt good.” 

She works her way through the handful that follow, dismantling guns and leaving a wake of incapacitated mobsters for Ruby and Weiss to skirt through. It’s oddly comforting, the way Yang’s brutal efficiency can be almost graceful to witness.

“What the--” The point of this all, the mob lieutenant with too much ambition and too little restraint, is glaring furiously from Ilia to Blake to the rest of them. Blake moves faster than anyone can track, as she does, and has the gun out of his hand before he can react, handing it over to Yang to dismantle and drop on the floor with a grin.

“Sit down,” Weiss says quietly.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” he snaps. “Do you have any idea--”

“Sit. Down,” Weiss says, and it could be the way her voice holds steady and icy or it could be the fact that Yang’s standing behind her with arms crossed and the unconscious bodies of his guards littering the ground behind her, but he sits. 

“You’re going to go to prison for the rest of your life.” Weiss folds her arms over her chest. “And you aren’t going to cut a deal.”

“You’re insane if you--”

“Stop talking,” Weiss snaps. She has her team at her back, solid and unwavering, and it steadies her hands and her voice. He can’t hurt her, and he won’t hurt Pyrrha or anyone else ever again. “You ordered a hit on an FBI team. We have it on video, and we’re going to wrap you up with a bow and leave you on their doorstep, and you’re going to plead guilty, and take your sentence, and spend the rest of your pathetic life wasting away in prison, because if you _ don’t _, I’m going to let your boss know that you were going to cut a deal with his biggest rival’s money team.”

His eyes go wide and dart over to Blake and then Ilia, who shrugs and flaps one hand out lazily.

“If you try to take a plea, I will know,” Weiss says softly. “If you ever try to share information or renegotiate a plea for a parole opportunity, I will know. And I will make it my mission to ruin you. We took you down in four and a half days. Imagine what we can do with a week.” 

“I don’t believe you,” he says, blunt and arrogant. 

“You have two houses in Boston and one in Weymouth. One is for your wife and one is for your parents and the one in Weymouth is for your girlfriend, who runs the world’s worst yoga studio. You go to the same gym four blocks from your house on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and you go to the Jamba Juice across after working out every time. You have one registered Glock, four hunting rifles, two shotguns, and two unregistered Berettas.”

She steps closer and towers over him, anger a comforting warmth buzzing under her skin, and smiles grimly down at the panic rising in his eyes.

“Let’s go over this one more time. You can go to prison, plead guilty, and live out your life a mobster folk hero for refusing to flip, or you can try and fight me on this and I will dismantle every good thing you have ever had in your life. Understood?”

Behind her, Blake and Yang and Ruby and Ilia have all drifted closer to one another, moving together and holding steady at Weiss’s back, a single constant holding her on course as she stares down a mob boss. She folds her arms over her chest and lifts an eyebrow, the way she always did in boardrooms and business dinners, the way she learned in the sixth grade and never let go of, sharp and expectant. 

“Fine,” he mutters out. “Understood.”

“Good,” she says briskly. “And one more thing.”

“What, more threats?”

Weiss pivots and slams a fist into his face, hard enough that her knuckles split and she can feel the crunch of his cheekbone cracking under her fist. 

“Shit, princess,” Ilia says lowly from behind her, echoing Yang’s low whistle of appreciation. 

“Wrap him up,” Weiss says, her voice finally starting to crack, and she steps around them and hurries out of the warehouse, back to the empty van where she can shut the door and drop her head back against the wall and try to hold all of her splintering pieces together.

The door opens long minutes later, Blake sliding in silently and crouching in front of Weiss, taking her hand and inspecting her knuckles with a huff.

“Did it feel good?”

“Yeah,” Weiss says dully. “For a bit, at least. Until the overwhelming pain in my hand took over.”

“Yang’s impressed,” Blake says with a smile, small and proud, and an easy warmth unravels in Weiss’s stomach because Blake is still here, they’re all still here, and they found the people who hurt Pyrrha. “Where’d you learn to hit like that?”

“Rich people sports,” Weiss says, shrugging, and the knots of tension that had been gripping at her shoulders for days finally start to unwind when Blake laughs.

“You’re something else, Weiss Schnee.” She shakes her head and stretches over to detach the first aid kid strapped to the back of one of the seats. “You know that?”

“I’ve always said so,” Weiss says as haughtily as she can manage. She sucks air in through her teeth when Blake dumps peroxide over her hand and slaps at her shoulder with her free hand. “_ Rude _, Blake!”

“So delicate,” Blake deadpans. She fits a bandage over Weiss’s hand and then smacks at her knee. “Come on, let’s get out of here. The others are depositing our gift to the FBI.”

Weiss sighs and pushes her uninjured hand through her hair, patting at the back of her head where there used to be another two feet of hair. 

“I feel like I should be used to it by now,” she mumbles, following Blake as she climbs up into the front seats.

“It’s been, like, less than a week,” Blake says with a scoff. 

“Yeah,” Weiss says, rubbing at her hair again. Less than a week, of short hair, of seeing Pyrrha, of facing down her old life and an organized crime ring. “Less than a week.”

* * *

The hospital is quieter, the crowds of exhausted agents that had been holding vigilance in the lobbies and waiting rooms for Pyrrha and her team dispersed over the recent days. Weiss doesn’t need an FBI jacket to disguise herself this time, and she clutches the file in her hands to her chest to steady her uncertain breathing.

“How’re you doing?” Ruby says quietly once they’re in the elevator.

“Thank you for coming,” Weiss says instead of answering, staring straight ahead at the numbers on the screen flashing up. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? There are still going to be agents here who’ll probably recognize you.”

“You’d think they’d _ appreciate _ the fact that I fixed their entire digital storage system, that thing was a disaster,” Ruby says with a sniff, and Weiss smiles in spite of the anxiety beating against her ribcage. “But no, I’m not worried. You won’t let them touch me.” 

She grins, wide and bright, and backs out of the elevator in front of Weiss, gesturing dramatically down the hallway. Weiss’s smile grows, because Ruby always makes her smile, and squares her shoulders, pauses to grip Ruby’s hand, makes her way down past the nurse’s station. The door’s cracked, and Weiss hesitates, hands unsteady until Ruby elbows her gently in the side and tilts her head towards the door, smile wide and eyes warm.

Jaune’s there, because of course he is, still tall and angry and glaring as soon as they step inside, but Weiss’s focus narrows to Pyrrha, sitting up and alert, and the way she somehow smiles when Weiss appears.

“Jaune, can we have a minute?” Pyrrha says, in that calm quiet way she always had, and Weiss’s heartbeat stabilizes for the first time since she walked out of the hotel an hour ago.

“I don’t--”

“You should check on your car,” Ruby says cheerfully. “I think someone left something in your trunk.”

He blinks at her, realization building in his eyes because he knows Ruby Rose, the whole FBI knows Ruby Rose and the way she breaks into their system every other Tuesday to replace her mugshot with a selfie, the hacker who unwound their cybersecurity on a regular basis. Weiss steps to one side, half in front of Ruby, and stares at Jaune until he huffs out a breath.

“Fine,” he mutters. “But I’m coming back up after that.”

“Delightful,” Weiss says flatly. “Can’t wait.”

He stalks past her, deliberately sliding sideways between her and the wall to avoid even coming close to touching her, and Weiss sneers elegantly at him as he does.

“I’ll go with you,” Ruby says, bright and bouncing, and skips out after him, pausing to flash Weiss a thumbs up on her way out. The door clicks shut behind her and Weiss is suddenly alone with Pyrrha again.

“You shouldn’t antagonize him,” Pyrrha says quietly, even though she’s smiling the tiniest bit. “He’s just worried.”

“I know.” Weiss clears her throat carefully. “I’m glad he’s looking out for you. Can I-- um--” She gestures towards the chair Jaune had been in, pulled up to Pyrrha’s bedside.

“You know you don’t have to ask.”

“Really kind of do, actually.” Weiss sits down on the edge of her chair and takes a deep breath, gaze locking onto Pyrrha’s damaged arm carefully. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I got shot,” Pyrrha says drily. “Weiss, can you at least look at me while you’re here?”

Weiss’s pulse trips over itself, breath catching somewhere in the middle of her lungs, and she clenches her hands on top of the files in her lap, tension carrying up through her arms and knitting together into an aching knot between her shoulderblades. It takes longer than she’d like to admit for her to pull her spine up straighter and her eyes up to Pyrrha’s, bright and sharp and familiar.

“I’m glad you’re here, you know,” Pyrrha says eventually. “I’ve wanted to talk to you since-- well. Since you left.”

“I can’t stay,” Weiss says, quiet and shaking and heavy with guilt, with regret, with every empty space that took up residence in her chest they day she left. “Pyrrha, I can’t-- there’s too much--”

“I know you aren’t staying,” Pyrrha says. She breathes in slowly, closing her eyes and measuring her breaths like she does when she’s thinking, the way she always has since they first met, when Weiss was younger and more reckless and Pyrrha was younger and still forever calm, a fixed point of tranquility in the hurricane of accelerated graduate school and internships Weiss had flung herself into. “You realize I know why you left, right?”

Weiss blinks owlishly and digs her fingernails into her own hands.

“Weiss, come on,” Pyrrha says with a tiny frustrated huff, so understated that on anyone else it would be meaningless, but coming from her it’s enough that Weiss’s entire equilibrium tilts and shatters. “Your dad went right up to the line of leaving you with nothing left to lose. He took your job and your name and your career, but he wasn’t an idiot. He left you something to lose and that was _ us _.”

Weiss’s fingernails press harder into her skin and her teeth grind together as Pyrrha lists out exactly what Weiss lost.

“I should have known you would figure it out,” she says quietly. “You always were the smarter one.”

“Not really,” Pyrrha says, and she drops her head back against the pillows stacked behind her. “You just always make the sacrifice play. And I know you, Weiss. I’ve always known how you think.”

“Yeah,” Weiss says. She reroutes her eyes down to her own lap and the white skin covering her knuckles, strained and bloodless under the tension in her hands. “You do.”

“You know, if you’d asked,” Pyrrha says, and then stops. She stares up at the ceiling for long seconds, Weiss counting the rapidfire rhythm of her pulse against the unwavering metronome of Pyrrha’s heart monitor. “If you’d asked, I would’ve told you to stay. I would have told you it was worth trying to fight it.” 

She drags her head back upright, eyes dulling with the fatigue creeping back over her, and waits until Weiss looks back up at her with wide uncertain eyes. “Do you believe that?”

“Yes,” Weiss says softly. “I knew it then, too. It’s why I didn’t ask.” 

“Always too smart for your own good, aren’t you?” Pyrrha says, sad and heavy and resigned, and one of Weiss’s fingernails breaks through skin.

“You love your job.” She forces her voice level as best she can. “And it matters, and you’re incredible at it. You help people. I could never take you away from that.”

“So instead you threw yourself on your sword?” Pyrrha shakes her head. “This job was never going to be forever, you know that. Even with you leaving to try and protect me, I still might never be back in the field. I have no idea if this will heal well enough for me to qualify for it. I would have rather lost it for you than for this.”

“You’re going to be okay,” Weiss says sharply. “You-- the doctor’s are optimistic--”

“You talked to my doctors?” One of Pyrrha’s eyebrows raises, and Weiss’s cheek go hot.

“I--” she starts, and then sighs, slumps in her chair. “May or may not have taken a look at the medical record, I’m sorry, I know it was a gross invasion of your privacy--”

“It’s okay,” Pyrrha says, smiling, and it catapults Weiss back a decade, to the second apartment they shared and the first time Weiss planned a surprise trip for the two of them, losing her nerve at the last second and apologizing profusely for the subterfuge and the manipulation of Pyrrha’s work schedule, all to be cut off by a smile. “I mean, it’s illegal, but also I don’t mind.”

Weiss groans and slumps further back in the chair, dropping her head back in a particularly undignified manner. 

“You know, this would be easier if you hated me,” she says to the ceiling.

“I’ve never been very good at hating anyone.”

“Yeah, I know.” Weiss heaves out a sigh and sits back up, propping her chin in her hand and wincing immediately when an ache flashes up her wrist from her damaged knuckles.

“What happened to your hand?”

“It’s nothing,” Weiss says, shifting her hand back into her lap promptly and covering it with her other one.

“Nothing looks a lot like a boxer’s fracture,” Pyrrha says, eyebrow up again, and Weiss wrinkles her nose.

“Never could lie to you,” she mutters. She holds her hand out for Pyrrha to see, flashing the split knuckles and dark bruising spiderwedding out, the fingers that won’t quite curl all the way into a fist yet. 

“I thought I taught you how to punch,” Pyrrha says with a tsk, uninjured hand reaching out automatically and curling around Weiss’s palm. It vacuums the air out of Weiss’s lungs, Pyrrha’s thumb ghosting over her knuckles, leaving her skin humming. 

“I know how to punch,” Weiss squeaks out, and then clears her throat sharply when Pyrrha laughs at her. “To be fair, I’m pretty sure I broke his face. So I still won.”

“Who’s that?” Pyrrha doesn’t let go, even as exhaustion weights her arm down and it drifts back down to rest on the edge of the bed, taking Weiss’s with it. 

“It’s not important,” Weiss says quietly. “You should rest.”

“No,” Pyrrha says, sharp even through fatigue, and she shakes her head hard enough that it makes her wince. “Not yet. I still need to talk to you.”

“You need to sleep.” Her throat aches as she speaks, and she reaches out without meaning to, free hand covering Pyrrha’s over her own, tracing familiar knuckles.

“I need to tell you something, though,” Pyrrha says. Her hand tightens over Weiss’s, strong as ever even when she’s injured and filled with drugs and exhausted. “And I need you to hear me, okay?”

Weiss swallows around the ache in her throat and nods, turning her hand over so she can wind her fingers through Pyrrha’s, holding on one last time before she has to leave again. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“I know why you left,” Pyrrha says firmly. Her voice is heavy with fatigue but her eyes are sharp again, bright and hard and everything Weiss fell in love with so long ago, and Weiss’s eyes start to burn. “And I know what you’re doing now. I know it’s-- it’s _ completely _ illegal, but it’s good. You’ve always been such a good person, Weiss. You’re helping people, and I’m still hurt that you’re not with me, but I’m glad you have a team. They’re good people.”

“Your partner thinks they’re heathen degenerates,” Weiss mutters before she can stop herself.

“Jaune is protective,” Pyrrha says dismissively. “That doesn’t make him right. I’ve always known where you were, and I know what you’re doing now.”

“I’m a criminal,” Weiss says, thin and sharp.

“You’re helping people,” Pyrrha counters. “When people like me can’t help them, _ you’re _ helping them.”

Weiss bites down on her lip, staring at Pyrrha appraisingly, years of guilt stepping aside to allow room for concern for her team. “Exactly how much do you know?”

“I know enough to keep other agencies off your back,” Pyrrha says. “I’m really good at my job.”

“Annoyingly good at it,” Weiss mutters, and it draws a laugh from Pyrrha, a full and genuine laugh that slams into Weiss. 

“I just wanted you to know,” Pyrrha says, hand tightening around Weiss’s. “That I never stopped looking out for you. And I know you’re still looking out for me. You do send an alarming number of pre-packaged criminals my way.”

“Yes, well,” Weiss says with a sniff. “No one else at your godforsaken agency has the competence to deal with them properly.” She says it automatically, the full weight of Pyrrha’s words sinking in a beat later. “You’ve really kept tabs on me this whole time?”

“Of course I did,” Pyrrha says through a yawn, exhaustion starting to get the better of her. “Just because you left doesn’t mean I ever stopped loving you.”

Weiss nearly slips off the edge of her chair, nearly drops the file in her lap. “What--” She cuts herself off, shaking her head. “Pyrrha, you should hate me, or at least-- stop--”

“I tried that,” Pyrrha says drowsily. She shrugs with one shoulder. “Didn’t work. So I stopped trying and just kind of leaned into it. It was better, anyways, knowing that you were at least okay, even if you were gone.”

Weiss slumps over their hands, forehead dropping down until it presses against Pyrrha’s knuckles. Her breath comes unevenly, her hands shaking around Pyrrha’s. She stays for long seconds, forehead pressed against the cool skin of Pyrrha’s hand, as much to steady herself as to hold on for just a little bit longer.

She pushes herself back up, swallowing against the way that all she wants to do is curl up at Pyrrha’s side like she used to and sleep for a week. Pyrrha’s still fighting to stay awake, eyelids drooping and blanket askew, and familiarity and affection and unshakeable habit have Weiss’s hand pulling free to tug the blanket higher and tuck it around Pyrrha.

“I really wish you hated me,” Weiss says quietly, still fiddling with the blanket uselessly. “Or were indifferent to me. It’d be easier to leave.” Her fingers shake around the edge of the blanket, and she pulls her hand back, pushes up to her feet, wishes desperately that she could stay.

“Please take care of yourself,” she says, barely over a whisper, and hesitates before leaning forward and brushing her lips over Pyrrha’s hairline. “Goodbye, Pyrrha.” 

Pyrrha’s eyes are finally closed, her breathing even and hand slackening in Weiss’s hold, her body succumbing to the exhaustion of healing and slipping into sleep. Weiss allows herself a few more moments and pulls Pyrrha’s hand closer, presses a kiss to her knuckles and settles her hand down gently on the bed.

She’s halfway to the door when Pyrrha’s voice stops her.

“Hey,” she says sleepily. “Do me a favor?”

Weiss pauses mid-stride and turns slowly, uncertainty clouding her features, and clasps her hands together behind her back, wrinkling the files in them.

“What?”

“You help people,” Pyrrha says. “That’s what you and your team do. And your father’s hurt a lot of people. So kick his ass sometime, will you?” She smiles, sleep-drunk and lopsided, and it pulls at every bit of Weiss that wants to stay. “For all of them, and for us.”

“For us,” Weiss echoes slowly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re it for me, you idiot,” Pyrrha mumbles. “So when you’re ready, you line him up, I’ll put him in prison, and then I’m coming after you, Weiss Schnee.” 

She yawns again, nose wrinkling, and it burns its way into Weiss’s chest. “Also, I really do like the short hair.”

Her eyes slide shut again as she slips back into sleep, leaving Weiss staring across the room at her. She doesn’t move until the door opens behind her and Jaune steps in, a bewildered look on his face replacing the constant scowl he’s had since Weiss arrived.

“Shh,” Weiss hisses out even though he hasn’t said anything, snapping out of her reverie and hurrying over to march him out of the room and shut the door softly behind her. Ruby’s leaning against the wall by the nurse’s station, arms folded over her chest, and she waves cheerfully when they appear. “She’s sleeping.”

“You left a handcuffed mobster in the trunk of my _ car _,” Jaune half-whispers, half-shouts. “How did you--”

“I told you I would deal with it,” Weiss snaps. She shoves the file into his chest. “That’s everything you need to build a case against him, not that you’ll need it. He’s going to confess to everything and there’s a video recording to corroborate it.” 

“You-- what?”

“He sent people to kill Pyrrha and you and Nora and Ren,” Weiss says, violently calm. Her fingernails dig into her palms. “Throw the book at him, Jaune. I could have disappeared him, but I’m leaving it to you to make sure he never breathes free air again. So take the collar and make it happen, okay?”

She brushes past him, stalking over to Ruby and not protesting when she slings an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go home,” she mumbles, energy draining out of her, and she leans into Ruby’s side.

“Weiss,” Jaune says suddenly, stopping the both of them. Weiss closes her eyes for one long inhale before turning around, not ready to deal with his anger anymore, but instead he’s looking down at his shoes. “I-- thank you. For this. I’ll make sure he goes away for it.”

He pauses and thumbs awkwardly at the papers in the file, clearing his throat. “Does-- does she know?”

“I didn’t tell her,” Weiss says quietly. “And neither will you. But she’ll figure it out. She always has.”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling for the first time that she’s seen in six years, and Weiss’s resolve snaps in half because once he had been her friend, one of her best friends, and she’s _ missed _ him, missed all of them “She will.” 

He pushes awkwardly at his hair, clearing his throat again, and Weiss sighs and rolls her eyes up towards the ceiling.

“Bye, Jaune,” she says carefully. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” he says, still smiling. He tilts his head towards Ruby. “Though I guess you’ve got people to look out for you now, don’t you?”

“I do,” she says, quiet and solid, and Ruby’s arm tightens around her shoulders. She nods once and turns back around, striding towards the elevator with Ruby’s arm firm at her shoulders, drawing her spine upright. 

“Everyone else is downstairs,” Ruby says once they’re in the elevator. “Bags packed, flights booked. Ready to go home.”

“Yeah,” Weiss says, slumping into her side and dropping her head onto Ruby’s shoulder, smiling nonetheless. “Let’s go home.”  
  


* * *


End file.
